Today, Kelly is doing Show Us Your Life-Ministries. Basically, every Friday she has a different topic that we can write on and then link up. Today it was all about what ministry your blog is/what you’re dealing with that could inspire and/or help those reading you blog. Head on over to her blog to read posts by others that have linked up!

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As those of you who have read my blog before know, I struggle with a lot of relational issues. A lot of days I’m lonely. I’m sure some of you can relate when I say I feel loneliest in a crowd. One-on-one I’m fine. But put me in a crowd of people and I’m likely to feel lonely.

This wasn’t always the case. I had an AMAZING group of godly friends. We were all so close.

About 9 months ago, they decided they no longer wanted me to be in their ‘group,’ per se. They excluded me, shunned me (I don’t mean to be dramatic. But this was/is the case), and stopped loving me.

These were the people I would grow old being best friends with. These were the people I considered brothers and sisters. The people I vowed I would die for in an instant. Truly, I would.

And then one day, it all just ended. They stopped caring and stopped loving me. It hurt. Deeply. More than you can probably imagine. They had a huge part of my heart, and they broke it into so many little pieces that I’ll never be whole again until Heaven.

Which is exactly where the silver lining* comes in! :)

*There’s a song called What Faith Can Do that has a line that says: You have to face the clouds to find the silver lining. Love it. SO true.

God is good. Even still, God is good. He never stopped being good. He never stopped loving me. Shocking, really. Because I’m not very loveable. Yet He loves me.

You know what I learned through this that is now embedded in my heart? He is FAITHFUL.

Let me tell you about Him. :) When your world caves in, He’s there watching. He comes to you and picks you up. He brushes the tears away, holds you while you cry, doesn’t cover His eyes while you scream, and doesn’t shield His eyes from the broken, raw, empty heart that is now yours. He loves you more deeply than you can imagine. Your pain hurts Him. YOUR pain hurts HIM. He could take it all away. I know He could. But He doesn’t. Because He knows you won’t grow that way. You won’t learn that way. You won’t be thankful that way.

Sure, you’ll be thankful the pain is gone. But you won’t learn the lessons. You won’t lean on Him. Because you wouldn’t have reason to.

He stays up with you through the night when you think you’ve cried your last…until the tears stream down your face once more. He stays up with you when you’re plagued by memories that haunt you. He forgives the mistakes you made. He gives you reason to hope. Even if it starts out with just getting you through one more day. He carries you when you can go no more. He searches for your broken pieces and begins to glue them back together, though you will never be the same. The marks will be there, but so will He. Because, you see, He’s Faithful.

He wants to redeem your broken heart. He longs to know you, and longs for you to want to know Him. And if it takes you being lonely, desolate, and broken, then I believe He just may have that happen. But you better watch out because He’s in the Redeeming Business

The people that I believed I’d be zooming around the nursing home in wheelchairs with? They still don’t love me. They don’t talk to me or acknowledge me, if at all possible. They don’t care. They broke promises. They lied. They broke my heart, stole my heart, and have yet to give it back.

I know, because I still feel empty. I still feel lonely. I still hurt when I have to see them at church every week. I still break a little tiny bit when I see them laughing together, hugging each other, sharing secrets with each other. It hurts. If you’re walking my path, you’re hurting, too.

I know.

But He is a God that is into Hope and Redeeming and Love.

I promise.

I pray that my story will be redeemed this side of Heaven. But if it’s not, it will still be worth it. The pain, hurt, emptiness, loneliness, fear, isolation, and brokenness…it’ll all be worth it.

Because He is Faithful. And now I will never doubt that again.